Here’s a backdoor pitch opp for you — VentureBeat’s VB Live webinar series. “It’s about 80 percent edit-driven,” says VB webinar manager Wendy Schuchart. The subject matter is the same mixture of tech trends and VC-minded advice that you see on the main VentureBeat web site.

It's tougher than ever to determine who covers what in today's tech media. Beats and sections used to be simple. Most publications had ample staffs, and the technology they covered (laptops, networking, printers) were largely unambiguous and well-understood.

If VentureBeat staff writer Jordan Novet says he'll get back to you, don't be surprised if on the odd chance he doesn't. Don't misunderstand: Jordan has integrity and means what he says. But look what happened in just two days this week: the IRS suffered computer failure; LinkedIn, Cisco and Microsoft acquired companies; and Box and Salesforce announced new products.

Healthcare-minded PR pros keep Christina Farr near the top of their pitch list, for good reason. Christina joined Fast Company last month as a senior writer covering "health and technology," one of the most fascinating beats you can have these days.

VentureBeat will turn ten years old in September. If it's to last another ten, Blaise Zerega will be the guy to chart the course. Blaise began this week as VB's EIC. He won't write much, so don't pitch him an everyday story. Pitch instead the story of the year.

With CES a month away, we asked veteran tech journalists, "if you could wave a magic wand and change the experience of covering CES, what exactly would you change?" We got more than our share of throwaway answers. We also got plenty of earnest answers that might help make a PR pro's Vegas experience more successful.

San Francisco will uncoil when Dreamforce ends today. Las Vegas can handle 160,000 people. South of Market can't. Salesforce did what it could, renting a cruise ship to house attendees. For our part we learned a lot by studying Dreamforce coverage -- including the nine-step process by which CEO Marc Benioff prepared his keynote speech. Every client should consider using this process as well.

Friday is Dylan Tweney's last day as a full-timer at VentureBeat. Though he'll remain as a columnist and podcaster, it's now on to the next phase of his career, as an independent content strategist working for tech startups and larger companies. You can reach him here.

You send us lots of rejected contributed content, asking what went wrong. Sometimes we can spot a path forward, but it's heartbreaking to hear that "the client wants it written this way" or "this has already been approved." That's why this week we studied nine sets of contributed content guidelines from top edit targets and packaged what we think is their most valuable advice.

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Journalists are leaving media brands every week. Read the fruits of 16 confidential interviews with journalists now working at tech brands or PR agencies, and five interviews with the executives who hired these journalists.